American Ending
(Blair, 2023)

Saturday, September 30
10:30 a.m.
Bethel United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall

About the book
This novel, chosen for Oprah’s Spring Reading List, is the story of a woman growing up in a family of Russian immigrants in the 1910s. Yelena’s Old Believer Russian Orthodox parents have settled in a Pennsylvania Appalachian town filled with Russian transplants and a new church with a dome. In a place where boys quit grade school for the coal mines and girls are married off at 14, Yelena — the first American born in her family — seeks a thoroughly American life. Zuravleff weaves Russian fairy tales and fables into a story that reflects the challenges immigrants continue to face today.

About the author
Mary Kay Zuravleff’s third novel, Man Alive!, was a Washington Post Notable Book, and her fiction and essays have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. American Ending was inspired by all four of her grandparents, Russian Orthodox Old Believers who lived in the Appalachian mining town of Marianna, Pennsylvania.

Purchase the book
Please help support local independent bookstores by purchasing this book at Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Online sources and digital versions are tempting; however, supporting local brick and mortar shops helps to preserve our vibrant main streets. Drop by Browseabout, order books online, or call the store at 302-226-2665. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes.

About the Festival
The History Book Festival is the first and only book festival in the United States devoted exclusively to history. With the help of our presenting funding partners — Delaware Humanities and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices I PenFed Realty — as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2023 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. Our Keynote Address is presented by Sally Mott Freeman and John K. Freeman, and our Closing Address is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.

Special thanks to our program partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library for event promotion and venue; Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival; Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.

Additional thanks to our community partners: ACLU Delaware, Beebe Healthcare, CAMP Rehoboth, Historic Lewes Farmers Market, Lewes Historical Society, Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach Historical Society & Museum, Seaside Jewish Community, and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ).